


Jawline

by thinkpink20



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-24
Updated: 2012-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-31 16:22:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinkpink20/pseuds/thinkpink20
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lestrade has an awkward meeting with Mrs Hudson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jawline

He goes so far out of his way to avoid bumping into John that Lestrade doesn't even consider Mrs Hudson.

He's doing up the buttons on his shirt cuffs as he steps into the kitchen at 221b and he looks up to find her there, putting cans of soup into the cupboard.

"Oh!" She says, face all surprise and ill-concealed pleasure, the Tesco carrier bag she's unloading rustling in her hand. "Good morning, dear."

"Um, morning."

He'd waited specifically until after nine, laid still and careful in bed listening to the noises of John getting up, getting dressed, shutting the door on his way out. And now he walks into this.

"I don't usually do their shopping," Mrs Hudson says, as though _she's_ the one who needs to be explaining her presence here. "But I do worry about him, you know, wandering around not eating, chasing murderers."

"Yeah," Lestrade answers, as though he's supposed to worry about these things too. "Of course."

"And John's no better, sweet man though he is - keep each other company in the days sometimes, we do."

"Do you?" Lestrade asks, because he's in 'polite' mode, aware he looks rumbled, aware he looks like he's been awake half the night pressing Sherlock's willing, sweat-glistened body into the matress. Which of course he has.

"We like the same things, you know," she goes on, her neat little laugh tinkling off the impractical fixtures of the kitchen-cum-laboratory. "Make over shows, that angry man who shouts at poor people, Loose Women."

Lestrade nods and smiles tightly. He doesn't know anything about daytime tv. 

"Of course His Lordship says it's all just noise," Mrs Hudson laughs, gesturing briefly towards Sherlock's bedroom, and she has a fond, warm look on her features that Lestrade hopes he never wears himself when talking about Sherlock. "He thinks it's just a waste of time, television."

"Yeah."

The conversation stalls awkwardly and Lestrade is aware his shirt isn't tucked into his trousers. He wonders what he should do now, whether he should just excuse himself and dash out of the door before she has a chance to start talking at him again. But then - 

"Still in bed, is he?"

Lestrade actually feels himself _blush,_ which is horrendous and hasn't happened since 1984, but before he has time to reply, Sherlock wanders into view from the bedroom, feet bare at the bottom of his pyjamas. His blue silk dressing gown is hanging down off his shoulders as though he was too lazy to pull it on properly. Which given the fact it's Sherlock, he probably was.

"Not anymore," he says, his voice thick and gravely the way voices often are in the morning, his tone sharp and grumping. "Apparently someone," he looks pointedly at Lestrade, "Doesn't know how to leave quietly."

"Oh, we were just talking about daytime tv, weren't we?" Mrs Hudson asks. "You hate it don't you, Sherlock?"

"Of course I do," Sherlock mutters, glancing around the kitchen for something. "I have a brain."

Mrs Hudson laughs again, then looks at Lestrade as though they're both indulging a four year old.

Which maybe they are.

"Where's my cup?"

"Well where did you last have it, dear? Did you take it to bed with you?"

"Well if I knew that it wouldn't be lost, would it?" Sherlock asks, and Lestrade watches as this strangely surreal domestic moment plays out before him. He wonders if he can slip away unnoticed before - 

"Did you both have a nice hot chocolate before bed?"

"We don't share milky drinks, Mrs Hudson," Sherlock says scathingly, and when she looks at him with a knowing smile in reply to that, Lestrade finds himself blushing again. He thinks he'd rather have encountered John - at least that would have been polite and repressed and manly.

"I remember me and _my_ husband used to share a hot chocolate before bed," Mrs Hudson says wistfully, the emphasis on 'my' implying that Sherlock and Lestrade are now in the same position. He feels a sudden desperate need to put her right on that - it's _really_ not like that. "He used to take a pinch of sugar in his; funny how some people just have a terrible sweet tooth, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Lestrade nods, smiling politely. He doesn't know why he's still pretending to engage in this conversation.

"You see me," Mrs Hudson goes on, "I'm more of a savoury sort of person, if you can imagine it - crisps, pastries, pies. I love a good pie, I make one with a nice thick crust. You'd never think it to look at me," she says, putting her hands on her waist, "But I've always been one of those people who can eat whatever they like, you know? Hollow legs, my mother used to say!"

And then she laughs again and Lestrade finds himself smiling. "That's good."

From over Mrs Hudson's shoulder, he sees Sherlock look up and smirk at him. This is the exact kind of basic polite chatter Sherlock doesn't engage in. He doesn't even feel the need to _try._ Lestrade sometimes envies him that.

"Isn't it?" Mrs Hudson says, still patting her waist. "I'm still a size twelve, you know, even at my age; my sister lost all that, ballooned like a Hoover bag, but me - "

"Finally!" Sherlock cries, locating his mug from underneath a pile of papers that look suspiciously like confidential police files. Lestrade makes a note to investigate that later. "John never cleans up in here."

"He's not your _slave,_ dear," Mrs Hudson titters, and Sherlock ignores her by running the water loudly in the sink and pouring himself some coffee from the filter. It's still warm where John left it not long ago.

"Thank you for the soup, Mrs Hudson," Sherlock says, crossing the kitchen to press a kiss against her forehead, leaving her giggling like a schoolgirl as he goes. Then he passes Lestrade and as he does so, he leans in to kiss him too.

Lips on his jawline remind Lestrade of the night before and he gets a flash of memory, Sherlock biting him very definitely as fingers slipped deftly down the curve of his spine, not stopping until they made him gasp. Lestrade is ashamed to realise his eyes flutter shut for the briefest of seconds as Sherlock nips him carefully once, as though trying to remind him. His bruised jaw skitters with a mixture of pleasure and pain.

Then when his lashes flutter open again, Lestrade realises Mrs Hudson is looking at them both, smiling like she's in the front pew at a wedding.

And worse than that, he realises Sherlock looks smug with himself, pleased at flounting all the rules of public decency. Whilst also making sure he's the centre of attention. Of course.

"Bye then," Sherlock says, and glances back. "Don't watch too much daytime television, Mrs Hudson; it'll rot your brain," he calls, voice disappearing into the bedroom at the same time he does.

Lestrade stands there with a beaming Mrs Hudson as a door shuts somewhere behind them both. He knows without questioning that soon this news will be the length and bredth of Baker Street.

Next time he's facing John Watson, the four horsemen of the apocolypse and his entire team and the Chief rather than this.


End file.
